If your kids are like mine, you have likely spent more time than you’re willing to admit publicly staring at the Dominos Pizza Tracker, waiting to watch your doughy goodness go from order placed to prep to bake to box and then – squee! – out for delivery. Last month during a school holiday that managed to fall on potentially the dreariest day of the year, my kids and I decided to order a Dominos pizza and the new stuffed cheesy bread (I’ve heard you can jump rope with the cheese) AND some Cinna Stix. We decided to go all out and make a Monday lunch a little something special. We ordered our food, sent an encouraging note to our pizza guru via the Pizza Tracker, and then watched with growling tummies as our order worked its way through the system.
But then something strange happened. Our pizza got stuck at the quality inspection point.
Time passed, tummies growled, kids complained. I called my Dominos and asked about the status of our stuck pizza and was told that rather than the 17 to 27 minutes I was quoted my order would take to arrive, it was actually going to be closer to an hour. Apparently it was a very busy Monday lunch? When I pointed out that my pizza was already made and being inspected – very thoroughly – I was told that the Dominos Pizza Tracker is not real.
Who told me this? The Dominos store manager.
I immediately posted this to Facebook: “So depressed. Just found out from my local shop that the Dominos tracker is totally not real. What next?!?” and shared something similar to 35,000 people or so via Twitter.
I was suddenly hit with a flurry of tweets telling me stories of similar discoveries from pizzas shown to be delivered that never showed up to a little girl asking to thank “Katie” who made her order only to be told that the names were made up and there was no Katie. The other downtrodden pizza lovers of the world tweeted with me and watched as my pizza tracker status changed at 11:59 to say that my food had been delivered and continued to listen when I updated them at 1:14 that it still had not actually arrived at my house.
Phone calls to the shop confirmed yet again that the driver hadn’t brought my food, which I already knew because of the lack of saucy, cinnamony, cheesy goodness in my house. But that pizza tracker? It wanted to know if I was enjoying my pizza. You know, the one that had been “delivered.” The kids hung in there, refusing to eat PBJ, my son’s face planted up against the front window watching for any sign of his food.
Dominos themselves quickly got into the tweeting frenzy, disputing people’s claims that the Pizza Tracker was not real. I tried to believe. After all, I had just spent the day before convincing my seven year old that the Tooth Fairy exists. I really was not in the mood for another man-behind-the-curtain moment. But all signs were pointing to marketing ploy.
Dominos continued to swear by the technology behind their Pizza Tracker as well as its validity, and so I did what any loud blogger would do – I requested an interview with the Dominos VP of Communications. In tomorrow’s post, learn the answer to the question we’re all asking – “Is the Dominos Pizza Tracker real?”
And yes, the food did eventually arrive and my kids and I watched as the driver got out of his car in the cold January drizzle, our boxes stacked on his seat, no warming bag to be seen. Thank God for patience and microwaves.
(Read the conclusion of Is the Dominos Pizza Tracker Real.)
Disclaimer: My local Dominos did not charge me for my order following the hour and forty minute lag between when I placed my order and when my food arrived. Dominos also offered me a $50 gift card, which I politely declined and was able to instead donate to a family in need, then sent me a letter confirming the donation.